Monday, July 06, 2015

Israel Should Stop Courting Europe, Turn to Asia

European
officials and European civil society often like to think of themselves as the
pinnacle of human rights and morality. In reality, Europe has become a moral
vacuum and, once again, a breeding ground for casual hate, racism, and
anti-Semitism. This has become clear not only through the example of
sophisticated elites like former Irish President Mary Robinson, British Labor
politician Jeremy Corbyn, or Daniel Bernard, the late French ambassador to the
United Kingdom, but also in the increasing European obsession with stable,
democratic Israel, while countries surrounding Israel degenerate into anarchy,
generate millions of refugees, promote genocide, and incite and sponsor
terrorism.

...Israel has
long considered itself almost a European country... For too
long, however, Israel has if not ignored Asia then put it on the backburner.
Sure, there was been sporadic outreach to China, but this was both half-hearted
and misguided: When it comes to the Middle East, Beijing is the ultimate
realist. Immediate commercial concerns means everything, broader principle mean
little if anything.

India—the
world’s largest democracy—was largely hostile to the Jewish state for the same
reason it was hostile to the United States. Indian nationalist diplomat
Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon coined the term ‘non-alignment’ in a 1953
United Nations speech, and the following year Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first
prime minister, co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement. In theory, it sought a
third path separate from the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the
United States but in practice it was marked by disproportionate hostility to
the West.

Non-alignment,
a fondness for socialism, and a suffocating bureaucracy hostile both to direct
foreign investment and free market enterprises long restrained India’s economic
potential. While India still has a way to go, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has
sought to bring India’s economy, political culture, and foreign into the 21st century.
He recognizes how much India and Israel have in common. They are both
democracies in a region where democracies otherwise have not thrived. And
Islamist radicals target them both. In the case of both, land disputes — be
they have Jerusalem and its environs in Israel’s case, or the Kashmir in
India’s — are only an excuse for a far more murderous agenda.

Earlier
this year, Modi announced that he would become the first Indian leader to visit Israel. Among tech-savvy
Indians, the twitter hashtag #IndiaWithIsrael is trending. Nor does it seem that Modi’s
looming visit will be the end-all and be-all of warming ties. As COMMENTARY readers
know, the UN Human Rights Council has long been a cesspool of anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic bias.

Consider these statistics of cumulative
Council condemnations from its founding in 2006 to the present: Israel has been
condemned more than 60 times, yet slave-holding Mauritania, blogger-whipping
Saudi Arabia, journalist-repressing Turkey, freedom-extinguishing China,
migrant worker-killing Qatar, and expansionist Russia have faced no condemnation.
Condemning Israel has become a knee-jerk reaction around the world and, for
decades, it has been India’s position as well. But on Friday, July 3, India shocked the Council by abstaining
on its condemnation of Israeli actions in last year’s Gaza War. Now an
abstention isn’t the same as a vote against, but clearly India-Israel relations
are on the upswing, or could be if Israeli leaders are willing to work hard to
cultivate them.

But India
is not alone. The
Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)
has long sought to cultivate ties between Israel and other Southeast Asian
countries—Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, and even Malaysia. The momentum is promising, as have
been the results considering the relatively small scale. If Israel made a
concerted effort to cultivate these ties, they might find a much more receptive
audience than in past years. Not only would this create a strategic buffer, but
it might also correct the narrative that all Muslims embrace the radical,
anti-peace positions put forward by more rejectionist Arab states and European
and American proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
movement. After all, Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on earth by
population, and India the second largest, even though it is not even majority Muslim.

Such
diplomacy need not be an either-or scenario, but just as Washington navel-gazes
and forgets that the United States and the targets of our interest are not
alone in the sandbox, so, too, do Europeans forget that they are not the
world’s moral barometer or the doyens of the elite club with which everyone
wants favor.

Not only is Southeast Asia booming as many of its countries
largely abandon ruinous socialist practices and authoritarianism, but many now
also face the same Islamist terror threat which Israel has been confronting for
decades. There is a convergence of interests; let us hope that Israeli
officials stop wasting undue energy on the Sisyphean task of pleasing European
officials inclined to dislike them and recognize that such efforts might lead
to greater results with a new eastern push.

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